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Hawk's Nest: LaCava's Tiger decision keeps looking better

Wind. Rain. Cold. Pro golf has its Big Three, and we had ours at the Little Brown Dog’s annual member/member, my personal favorite among the three or four big events at the club. Bidding was up – a couple of teams went for $2,600 in the Calcutta – but we weren’t playing it down, as the atrocious conditions led to preferred lies everywhere but in bunkers and other hazards.

Casual water, anyone? Competing with a partner, especially one who chips and putts like Bobby D., will always float my boat, but the excess energy required to play in lousy weather can be a real drain on the middle-aged psyche. All those layers of clothing in addition to the fear and loathing, then fluffing it up in the rough and trying to putt through a creek suddenly bisecting the fifth green …

“I’ve never heard of a wind-chill index on Memorial Day weekend,” Kano cracked Saturday afternoon. Easy for him to say – he’d withdrawn from the tournament two days earlier because we had an odd number of participants. See? Sometimes, nice guys do finish first.

MY LONGTIME FRIEND Joe LaCava obviously had better things to do over the holiday than test the threshold of his rain gear. Since getting to know LaCava in the mid-1990s while he was solidifying his reputation as one of the game’s best caddies under Fred Couples, I’ve always been impressed with his abundance of instinctive intelligence. He’s smart in a very simple kind of way.

Two years have passed since LaCava left Couples to work for Dustin Johnson, a relationship that lasted for five months before he was hired by Tiger Woods. In October 2011, many people thought LaCava was making a huge mistake by leaving Johnson, who had won three times in 18 months and appeared to be evolving into one of the world’s top players.

Woods was still struggling from the repercussions of post-hydrant syndrome. With each start that summer, he looked less and less like the player he’d once been, but to me, LaCava’s decision to accept Tiger’s offer fell somewhere between a calculated risk and a no-brainer.

Even at 75 or 80 percent of the level he’d reached in his prime, Woods was and is a better player than Johnson. A much better putter, a far more tenacious competitor and clearly more durable under Sunday pressure. I said it repeatedly on my live chats during the 2011 FedEx Cup playoffs: LaCava would be nuts not to go work for Woods, and the caddie I know doesn’t have a single pistachio in his mental makeup.

As usual, LaCava made the smart move. Tiger’s high ceiling isn’t the only reason Joe did the right thing, however. More on Johnson in a bit.

NOT TO BRAG or anything, but I did pick Boo Weekley in the Fantasy Challenge this past week. I indulge in this brief moment of self-glorification not because I’m very good at picking winners, which I am not, but because Weekley and Colonial make perfect sense. If a PGA Tour venue requires you to drive it straight and hit lots of precise iron shots into tiny greens, Boo is a can-do.

You know where else Weekley might emerge as a serious factor? Merion GC, site of the upcoming U.S. Open. Don’t listen to me, though. I’m pretty awful at predicting the future.

TWO MEMBERS OF last fall’s U.S. Ryder Cup team failed to hold 54-hole leads in Texas. Keegan Bradley at the Byron Nelson, then Matt Kuchar at Colonial, and though each guy led by only a stroke going into Sunday, there is an element to their demises that relates to my take on Johnson.

Three of his seven Tour victories have come in 54-hole events, a freakish trend even when you consider that Johnson has come up short on Sunday three times at major championships. Now it’s not Johnson’s fault that the weather was lousy at Kapalua, The Barclays and Pebble Beach – you don’t give back a quarter of the winner’s check because there never was a final round.

About half of all 54-hole leaders go on to win the event. Would Johnson have finished first in all three of those tournaments if they hadn’t been shortened by weather? Perhaps, but we’re talking about a very talented player who suffered through an unsightly meltdown at the 2010 U.S. Open, a guy who missed a spot in the playoff at the PGA Championship two months later because he didn’t know a local rule posted all over the locker room, a guy who shanked an iron out of bounds with the game on the line at the 2011 British Open.

History doesn’t lie, regardless of whether it tells the entire story. Some people out there think Johnson could become a dominant player, but I’m not one of them. I think he lacks the focus and passion to become a big, big deal, and nothing in his personal life will lead me to feel any differently about him anytime soon.

I don’t understand how anyone that big and strong can continue to struggle with injuries. I don’t understand the wild inconsistencies in his putting statistics over the course of his career, and I definitely don’t understand how a kid who grew up in Myrtle Beach can be so lousy in a bunker.

Without question, Johnson has immense physical gifts. It explains why he can be so slipshod in several aspects of the game and still collect $4 million a year in earnings. If LaCava had stayed with him, Johnson might be further along in his career than he is now, but that is something of a moot point at this juncture.

I’ve probably been harder on Woods than any athlete I’ve covered in my 30 years as a sportswriter. I also think he is the greatest pressure performer who ever lived – a man of such enormous mental toughness that many of his conquests have come about because of sheer will.

When I contacted LaCava Saturday to ask him about he decision he made in the summer/fall 2011, he politely declined to comment, saying, “I would just [like to] lay low and fly under the radar. Certainly hope you understand.”

First Look: WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play groups

AUSTIN, Texas – Although professional golf’s version of March Madness is considered just plain maddening in some circles following the switch to round-robin play three years ago, it’s still one of the game’s most compelling weeks after a steady diet of stroke play.

With this week’s lineup having been set Monday night via a blind draw, we take a deep dive into WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play bracketology (current world golf rankings in parentheses):

Pool play will begin Wednesday, with the winner from each of the 16 groups advancing to knockout play beginning Saturday:

Teeing off: This sounds like the beginning of a joke that’s made the rounds at the United Nations, but what do you get when a pair of South Carolinians, a Canadian and an Austrian walk onto the first tee? Group 1 and what, on paper, looks like it could be the week’s most lopsided pod with the world No. 1, who never trailed on his way to victory last year, poised to pick up where he left off.

Teeing off: The Asian John Daly (aka Aphibarnrat) will have his hands full with Rahm, who lost the championship match to Johnson last year; while Bradley may be this group’s Cinderella after making a late push to qualify for the Match Play.

Teeing off: This may be the week’s most awkward pairing, with Spieth and Reed turning what has been one of the United States' most successful tandems (they are 7-2-2 as partners in Presidents and Ryder Cup play) into an early-week highlight. It will be “shhh” vs. “Go Get that.”

Teeing off: Cantlay could be the Tour’s most reserved player, Smith isn’t much more outspoken and Matsuyama and Miyazato speak limited English. This will be the quietest pod, and it’ll have nothing to do with gamesmanship.

Teeing off: Three weeks ago, Phil Mickelson confused Sharma for a member of the media when he tried to introduce himself at the WGC-Mexico Championship. As a public service announcement: it’s SHAR-ma. You may be hearing it a lot this week.

Teeing off: We showed up in Austin and a Ryder Cup broke out. Fleetwood is all but a lock to make this year’s European team, and fellow Englishman Poulter (23-14) has forged a career on his match-play prowess. For Berger and Chappell, who both played last year’s Presidents Cup, it’s a chance to impress U.S. captain Jim Furyk.

Teeing off: Casey has a stellar record at the Match Play (23-13-1) and having finally ended his victory drought two weeks ago at the Valspar Championship the Englishman could likely seal his Ryder Cup fate with a solid week at Austin Country Club.

Teeing off: The best part of March Madness is the potential upsets, and while Suri, the last man in the field, isn’t exactly UMBC over Virginia, don’t be surprised if the little-known player from St. Augustine, Fla., stuns some big names this week.

Teeing off: Finau and Pieters have the firepower to play with anyone in the field and Noren’s record the last few months has been impressive, but Na looks like one of those Princeton teams who can wear down anyone.

Teeing off: Mickelson has been rejuvenated by his victory at the last World Golf Championship, Cabrera Bello is poised to earn a spot on this year’s European Ryder Cup team and Howell is playing some of the best golf of his career. Note to Kodaira, don’t try to introduce yourself to Lefty before your match.

Teeing off: Perez explained that during a practice round on Monday he was talking trash with Branden Grace. Not sure Kim will be down for some trash talking, but it would certainly be entertaining and probably a little confusing for him.

Teeing off: If any of these matches comes down to a tie, may we suggest officials go to a sudden-death ping-pong match. No one can compete with Kuchar on a table, but it would be must-see TV nonetheless.

Randall's Rant: Hey, loudmouth, you're not funny

You’re that guy following around Rory McIloy and yelling “Erica” at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

There was something creepy in the nature of your bid to get in McIlroy’s head, in the way you hid in the shadows all day. Bringing a guy’s wife into the fray that way, it’s as funny as heavy breathing on the other end of a phone call.

You’re that guy telling Justin Thomas you hope he hits it in the water at the Honda Classic.

There are a million folks invested in seeing if Thomas can muster all the skills he has honed devoting himself to being the best in the world, and you’re wanting to dictate the tournament’s outcome. Yeah, that’s what we all came out to see, if the angry guy living in his mother’s basement can make a difference in the world. Can’t-miss TV.

You’re that guy who is still screaming “Mashed Potatoes” at the crack of a tee shot or “Get in the Hole” with the stroke of a putt.

Amusing to you, maybe, but as funny as a fart in an elevator to the rest of us.

As a growing fraternity of golf fans, you “guys” need a shirt. It could say, “I’m that guy” on one side and “Phi Kappa Baba Booey” on the other.

I know, from outside of golf, this sounds like a stodgy old geezer screaming “Get off my lawn.” That’s not right, though. It’s more like “Stop puking on my lawn.”

I don’t know, when the beer’s talking, it sounds a lot like the liquor talking to me, just a different dialect.

From the outside, this push-back from players makes them sound like spoiled country club kids who can’t handle the rough-and-tumble playgrounds outside their prim little bailiwick. This isn’t really about social traditions, though. It’s about competition.

It’s been said here before, and it’s worth repeating, golf isn’t like baseball, basketball or football. Screaming in a player’s backswing isn’t like screaming at a pitcher, free-throw shooter or field-goal kicker. A singular comment breaking the silence in golf is more like a football fan sneaking onto the sidelines and tripping a receiver racing toward the end zone.

While the first proposition would make for good TV, it probably wouldn’t be good for growing the sport.

So, it’s a tough question, but golf’s governing bodies should know by now that drunken fans can’t read those “Quiet Please!” signs that marshals wave. There will have to be better enforcement (short of tasers and muzzles).

There’s another thing about all of this, too. Tiger Woods is bringing such a broader fan base to the game again, with his resurgence. Some of today’s younger players, they didn’t experience all that came with his ascendance his first time around. Or they didn’t get the full dose of Tigermania when they were coming up.

This is no knock on Tigermania. It’s great for the game, but there are challenges bringing new fans into the sport and keeping them in the sport.

How Faxon became 'The Putting Stroke Whisperer'

AUSTIN, Texas – During a charity event a few years ago Brad Faxon was asked what he’s thinking about when he putts. A hush fell across the green as everyone within earshot eagerly awaited the answer.

Imagine having the chance to quiz Leonardo da Vinci about the creative process, or Ben Hogan on the finer points of ball-striking. Arguably the best putter of his generation, if anyone could crack the complicated code of speed, line and pace, it would be Faxon.

Faxon mulled the question for a moment, shrugged and finally said, “Rhythm and tempo.”

If Faxon’s take seems a tad underwhelming, and it did that day to everyone in his group, the genius of his simplicity was on display last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Before arriving at Bay Hill, Rory McIlroy ranked 124th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: putting, losing .1 strokes per round to the field. In fact, he’d missed the cut a week earlier at the Valspar Championship when he needed 58 putts for two days and made just a single attempt over 10 feet.

It’s one of those competitive ironies that having the weekend off turned out to be just what McIlroy needed. He went home to South Florida to work on his game and ran across Faxon at The Bear’s Club.

Although Faxon’s take on the art of putting was probably more involved than it had been a few years earlier, he seemed to have touched on all the right points.

“Freed up my head more than my stroke,” McIlroy explained. “I sort of felt like maybe complicating things a bit and thinking a little bit too much about it and maybe a little bogged down by technical or mechanical thoughts.”

Earlier in the week McIlroy had a slightly different take on his putting turnaround at Bay Hill, where he led the field in strokes gained: putting, picking up 10 shots for the week, and rolled in 49 feet of putts over his last five holes to end a victory drought that had stretched back to the 2016 Tour Championship.

“Just playing around with it. Seeing balls go in in the front edge, trying to hit them in the left edge, the right edge, hit them off the back of the cup,” he said on Thursday. “Just trying to get a little bit more feel into it and a little more flow.”

If that doesn’t exactly sound like an exact science, welcome to the Faxon way. In recent years, he’s become something of F which is no huge surprise considering his status as one of the game’s best on the greens.

Between 1991, the year he won the first of eight Tour titles, through 2005, the year he won his last, Faxon ranked outside the top 20 in putting average just four times, and he led the circuit in that category three of those years. But in recent years he’s come into his own as a putting guru.

“The first clinic I attended that a Tour player gave, it was Hale Irwin, and he talked about rhythm and tempo, I was disappointed because I wanted to hear more than that,” Faxon explained. “I thought there would be more technical stuff. I thought it was the default phrase to take pressure off the player, but the more I’ve learned about teaching the best players in the world don’t have many complicated thoughts.”

Faxon’s career has been nothing short of impressive, his eight Tour titles spanning two decades; but it’s his work with players like McIlroy and Gary Woodland that has inspired him in recent years.

A man who has spent his life studying the nuances of the golf swing and putting stroke has created a teaching philosophy as simple, or complicated depending on the player, as rhythm and tempo.

“He teaches me, which is a good thing. He doesn’t have a philosophy,” Woodland said. “I was around him a lot in 2011, 2010, it’s unbelievable how well he can relay it now. He has video of a million guys putting and he’s one of the best to do it, but he can show you that you don’t have to do it one certain way and that was good for me.”

For Woodland, Faxon keyed in on his background as a college basketball player and compared the putting stroke to how he shoots free-throws. For McIlroy, it was a different sport but the concept remained the same.

“We were talking about other sports where you have to create your own motion, a free-throw shooter, a baseball pitcher, but what related to him was a free-kicker in soccer, he mentioned Wayne Rooney,” Faxon said. “You have to have something to kick start your motion, maybe it’s a trigger, some might use a forward press, or tapping the putter like Steve Stricker, sometimes it’s finding the trigger like that for a player.”

Faxon spent “a good two hours” with McIlroy last weekend at The Bear’s Club, not talking technique or method, but instead tapping into the intuitive nature of what makes someone a good putter. Midway through that session Faxon said he didn’t need to say another word.

The duo ended the session with a putting contest. Putting 30-footers to different holes, the goal was to make five “aces.” Leading the contest 4-2, Faxon couldn’t resist.

“Hey Rory, after you win Bay Hill this week you’ll have to tell the world you lost to Brad Faxon in a putting contest,” Faxon joked.

McIlroy proceeded to hole three of his next four attempts to win the contest. “I’m going to tell everyone I beat Brad Faxon in a putting contest,” McIlroy laughed.

Maybe it’s the way he’s able to so easily simplify an exceedingly complicated game, maybe it’s a resume filled with more clutch putts than one could count. Whatever it is, Faxon is good at teaching. More importantly, he’s having fun and doing something he loves.

“I have a hard time being called a teacher or a coach, it was more of a conversation with Rory, being able to work with someone like Rory is as excited as I’ve ever been in my career,” Faxon said. “It meant much more to me than it did Rory.”

Frittelli fulfilled promise by making Match Play field

AUSTIN, Texas – Dylan Frittelli attended the University of Texas and still maintains a residence in Austin, so in an odd way this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play is a home game for the South African who plays the European Tour.

Frittelli actually attended the event last year as a spectator, when he watched the quarterfinal matches on Saturday afternoon, and made a promise to himself.

“I told a lot of people, I was running into them. I said, ‘I'll be here next year, I'll be playing in this tournament,’” said Frittelli, who climbed to 45th in the world ranking after two victories last year in Europe. “People looked at me, you're 190 in the world, that's hard to get to 64. It was a goal I set myself.”

Frittelli’s next goal may be a little payback for a loss he suffered in college when he was a teammate of Jordan Spieth’s. Frittelli is making his first start at the Match Play and could face his old Longhorn stable mate this week depending on how the brackets work out and his play.

“We had the UT inter-team championship. Coach switched it to match play my senior year, and Jordan beat me in the final at UT Golf Club. It was 3 and 2,” Frittelli said. “So I'm not too keen to face him again.